Guess Who Saw the Live-Action Aladdin Finally?
Not a liveblog, but I did want to share my reactions/notes and may do a full delving into it later! (Also hi everybody, not dead, just super busy and poor!)
All in all, I liked it, and I thought it was a better adaptation than live action Beauty and the Beast. Spoilers and commentary under the cut:
- I liked Will Smith as Genie; he had a pleasant singing voice and that was a surprise since I’m just used to him as a rapper. I do think there are places in his songs where I wish he went harder, especially in Friend Like Me, but it seems like the movie decided his showstopper was going to be Prince Ali instead.
- I actually don’t think anybody was miscast in this movie, on that note. I enjoyed everybody.
- I first looked at this movie and wondered whether Alan Tudyk would be playing Iago as a person the way Gilbert Gottfried did or if he’d be making bird noises, and I came to find it was a mix of the two. His characterization and his speech abilities and patterns were actually super reminiscient of Xerxes, and on that note:
- Jafar and Iago read as very akin to Mozenrath and Xerxes in this movie, to me. Jafar is younger, which -- at least makes his desire to marry Princess Jasmine (who is 16 at the youngest [in the novelization] and 18 at the oldest [most other places] in the original, depending on sources) far less barfy and gross. He has a higher body count than Jafar in the cartoon, and the little bits of characterization he’s given suggest that he has sacrificed much and killed many in pursuit of what power he already has. His desperation for this to be recognized and respected just rang as very Moze and was NOT the place he was coming from in the original movie.
- The parallels deliberately drawn between Jafar and Aladdin made for the most interesting thing in the movie and it made Aladdin’s conflict and need for character growth a lot more dynamic. Jafar is a former thief and stands as an example of what Aladdin could become if he goes down the wrong path. Genie differentiates between Aladdin and that guy, and that guy is somebody Genie’s met a thousand times already. He knows the signs and he knows when Aladdin is headed down that road. And Aladdin starts to go down that road when he considers not freeing the Genie with his third wish. It’s not just that he is afraid of Jasmine finding him out; it’s that he’s gotten a taste for his new identity and wants more.
- Jasmine. Jaaaaaasmine. Gets so much more to do in this movie and got her own arc. She wants to be diplomatic. She wants to help her people. What’s more, her motivation isn’t “I want to marry for love” it’s “I am not interested in being married. I want to be the Sultan so I can help my people.” She is bred for office; she wants to rule and she wants to make her kingdom better, and she never wavers in this. Her arc is not completed when the Sultan changes the law about marriage for her -- it’s completed when the Sultan makes her the new Sultan and says whether she gets married and to whom is now her decision because she makes the laws. She also got her own I Want song and it’s short but substantial. (I was confused when she reprised it after Jafar’s takeover and suddenly guards started disintegrating around her because it’s not immediately clear we’re in her head so I’m going when did she get super powers)
- Carpet was animated so well in terms of movement that the character translated as the same character from the original, and that in itself is impressive.
- On that note, VENGEANCE FOR CARPET.
- I want to welcome Frank Welker back as like, the ONLY actor to reprise their roles. And a special welcome back to his Megatron voice when he spoke (read: screamed) as the Cave of Wonders.
- So did Genie lose all his powers at the end of the movie? I don’t feel like this is clearly communicated.
- Also just like the original film, they forgot about their storytelling bookend. And that’s a shame because it should have ended with the kids asking their dad if he still had any magic and there just being a kind of a wink and a smile as he goes back to work, and then him using some to subtly mend a sail or something else while they’re not looking, shooting the audience a knowing look, etc. Woulda been better, that’s all I’m saying.
- Genie and Dalia was cute but completely underdeveloped and they jumped to “let’s run away and get a boat and have babies” really fucking quick. Ali has been there like two days, slow your roll.
- I think the Sultan was underdeveloped here. I liked where they went with him. I liked seeing a severe and wise Sultan and not a manbaby parody, because it also shows how much more sinister Jafar’s power is? But he didn’t get enough to do, and there’s a lot of TELLING us that he won’t let Jasmine go out because he’s afraid for her after his wife dying, but we’re not really shown and there should have been a scene where we saw him wrestle with that a bit.
- I get what they were doing by jumping right to Jasmine in the marketplace with Aladdin and I think the way they did it let the two develop and grow together a little more, but it’s still a little rushed.
- Making the first Cave of Wonders scene part of the montage in Arabian Nights was a mistake and it made me feel like they were counting on you having already seen the movie. I almost suspect that there’s a longer version of this scene somewhere and they trimmed it down to make it less scary.
- I said it’s better than the live action Beauty and the Beast because it closed virtually every character arc as opposed to forgetting them/disregarding them completely, among other things.